Labour History Project Newsletter 55

7/29/2019 Labour History Project Newsletter 55

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Newsletter 55 - August 2012

ISSN 1175-3064

The Labour History Project Inc.

PO Box 27-425

Wellington

Aotearoa / New Zealand

For more information on LHP membership, activities,

publications and news, check out or website:

www.lhp.org.nz

DESIGN: Jared Davidson


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NEWSLETTER 55 | AUGUST 2012

Introduction from editor Mark Derby ..................................................... 3

Chairs report .......................................................................................... 4

Is this the Capstan Rock? ................................................................................. 5

A 19th-century mining enquiry ......................................................................... 6

A comrade from the antipodes .................................................................. 8An alleged Spanish Civil War combatant ................................................... 9

Raise the banner high ......................................................................................... 11

The role of the public sector ............................................................................. 11

Remember Waihi ...................................................................................... 12

1913 - War on the Wharves .................................................................................. 12

Labour history in Italy ......................................................................................... 13

Happy birthday, Woodie Guthrie ............................................................................. 13The Battle of Blair Mountain ............................................................................. 13

Many happy song-sessions: Kiwi Youth Sings ................................................. 14

Socialist Cross of Honor: markings of a working class counter-culture ........ 19

Runanga Miners Hall: the early years 1908-1920 ................................. 24

My comrade, Tilly Hunter ......................................................................... 29

Perspectives of a Strike ........................................................................... 35

Strongman - The Tragedy ............................................................................... 38

Coal and the Coast ............................................................................... 40

Henry Lawson in New Zealand ..................................................................... 41


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Although it wasnt planned that way, this issue of the Labour History Projects

thrice-yearly journal mainly addresses cultural manifestations of labour history.

From his ongoing exploration of politically charged New Zealand folk music,

which includes both PhD-level academic research and live performance, Michael

Brown has written about a songbook published in the 1950s by Victoria

Universitys renowned Socialist Club, whose membership once included

Michaels father. The LHPs recent AGM was enriched by several examples of

songs from this collection, selected by Michael who also accompanied and ledthe singing of the multi-talented members of our organisation.

Peter Clayworth has drawn on his long-term research interest in the history of

West Coast mining unionism to record the vast range of cultural and other

activities once held at the Runanga Miners Hall. As his article points out, this

building is currently red-stickered as an earthquake risk, making his article

especially timely.

As with all issues of the journal since 2010, this one has been designed by LHP

member Jared Davidson of Christchurch. Jared has also contributed an article

on the Socialist Cross of Honor, once presented to those imprisoned for opposing

conscription in World War One, and now all but forgotten. Jared records

his chance rediscovery of this remarkable emblem, and recalls the labour

movements prominent place in the peace movement of the early 20th century.

While preparing this issue, I was invited to deliver a workshop on labour history

to the AGM of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, the EPMU.

This was a welcome opportunity to test the relevance of historical research to

the modern union movement, in a period when a series of labour disputes

have dominated the front pages and nightly news bulletins for weeks at a time.

The workshop was well attended and I was impressed by the ability of those

taking part to apply the lessons of the past to the issues they are facing every

day as union activists.

In several of the most hard-fought disputes of recent months, the unions

position has been upheld and their members have won substantial gains. In

this precarious era, the LHP is determined to make its activities, services and

skills as relevant as possible to the needs of the present.

Introduction from editorMark Derby



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This is written just days after the LHPs latest AGM, an event marked by live

singing, home cooking and a typically rousing address from our guest speaker,

CTU president Helen Kelly.

As is customary for these meetings, contributions from the floor produced

some of the most valuable outcomes. At last years AGM, one participant

queried why the LHP kept its accounts with a foreign-owned bank. The

inadequate answer is that we had remained with the same bank since ourformation decades earlier, without making the effort to switch to a more

appropriate institution. That question, however, prompted our treasurer,

Jim McAloon, to take steps to transfer our accounts to a locally owned bank.

At this latest AGM, committee member Marie Russell raised the question of

the current whereabouts of a banner created for the TUHP (as the LHP was

originally named) in 1990, and not seen in recent years. Another attendee at

the meeting, CTU secretary Peter Conway, promised to investigate, and soon

revealed that the banner has been held in safe storage for us by the EPMU.

Expect to see more of i t in the coming year.

The AGM endorsed a program of activities for the year ahead that i s based

around several important centenariesof the 1912 Waihi miners strike

(commemorated by a seminar at Waihi in November this year), of the NZPSA

(with a major international seminar taking place in Wellington in July 2013,

and many other activities) and of the 1913 great strikes (which the LHP

proposes to recall with a guided tour of historic sites in Wellington, and a

specially produced interactive website).

It is also gratifying to report that our old friends the Community Media

Trust/Vanguard Films have recently begun working from a new permanent

home in the Wellington Trades Hall. Thanks to their support, the LHP now

plans to the use the Ernie Abbott Room in the hall for our six-weekly committee

meetings. As committee member Dave Grant says, this room is, central,

permanent and ideologically empathetic. We look forward to many productive

and enjoyable meetings there.

Mark Derby



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LHP member and longtime West Coaster Pete Lusk recently sent this photo

showing his friend Len Doel standing on a prominent outcrop near Burnetts

Face, in the mountains inland from Westport. (Burnetts Face was once a thriving

mining settlement and is now a ghost town. Its just a short distance from

Denniston, now a much better known community thanks to inspired cultural

reworkings of its labour history.)

Pete thought this may be the once-famous Capstan Rock, where the minersmet in 1890 as their big strike fizzled out. Len Richardson, in Coal, Class and

Community, p.51, says the miners met here secretly and decided to dissolve the

union. It was a victory for the bossesbut not for long!

A former Burnetts Face miner, the late Geoff Kitchen, had earlier told Pete

about this rock. I seem to remember him calling it the stanchion rock, a

stanchion being a post on a ship that you attached a rope to. Whether stanchion

or capstan, those early miners would have been familiar with these features

on board shipyou can imagine passengers being addressed from atop the

capstan or kids climbing over it during their long voyage from Britain.

Pete showed this photo to his friend Peter Mullen, who is in his 90s and worked

as a boy in the mines. He told me the union president sometimes addressed

the miners from a large rock in the late 1930s. He doesnt remember the title

capstan. They simply called it The Rock. However when Peter Mullen saw

the photo, he thought this might not be the same rock where union meetings

were held during his days in the mines.

Whether or not this is the Capstan Rock, Pete Lusk is convinced that Its

important to get this place protected, as few now know of its history. New

opencast mines planned for Denniston could see it destroyed. The LHP is in

discussion with the Historic Places Trust, the West Coast conservancy of the

Dept of Conservation, and the mining companies who plan to reopen the oldcoal workings, regarding the historic significance of remaining features of the

early mining settlements.

PETE LUSK.



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Wellington science historian Simon Nathan and a student assistant have spent

the last six months transcribing the notoriously illegible letters of pioneering

geologist Sir James Hector, a dominant figure in the scientific and intellectual

life of late 19th-century New Zealand. By 1890 Hector was in charge of the

Colonial Museum (now Te Papa Tongarewa), the Geological Survey (now GNS

Science) and the New Zealand Institute (now Royal Society of New Zealand),

as well as Chancellor of the University of New Zealand.

Simon says, eventually we intend to place all the collections on the Geoscience

New Zealand website www.gsnz.org.nz as downloadable documents, as they are

such a valuable resource. In the meantime, a batch of letters written by Hector

to his wife Georgiana in 1890the only personal letters that have survived

are available as a downloadable PDF at: http://cdn.onlinehosting.co.nz/~gsnz/

siteadmin/uploaded/gs_downloads/MP133A.pdf

The following extracts give his comments on the widespread industrial actionthen sweeping the country. Ill leave you to judge where his sympathies lay!

says Simon.

Wed 3 Septr 90

What a row about nothing all over the colonybut it will lead to great

hardship and disorganisation. I fear the new parliament will be very

ruthless and not care much for right or wrong. No one is to be paid

more than a working mans wage. That is the creed freely discussed

down here.

Dunedin, 4 Sept. 90

This place was very quiet yesterday but i t is sad to see the harbour empty

& everything at a standstill & crowds of sulky looking men blocking all

the corners. I can[t] help thinking there will be a row & some broken

heads before it is over.

11 Sept. 90

The strike is subsiding here I am glad to say. There is a good story about

it. One of the rioters was fined 2 10 or a month in jail & the money

was subscribed and given to his wife to get him out. But she said But

its Johns own fault & i f he was out he would not be earning anything

so Ill just keep the money & let him take it (the time) out in jail. The

moneys of more use to me now than he would be.

In October/November 1890 Hector chaired an inquiry in Greymouth into

working conditions in the Grey Valley coal mines.

Greymouth, 16 Oct. 1890

We have got through 5 witnesses now & I have an interview with the

strike leaders & they are to come before us at Brunnerton on Monday.

I suspect we will have to get some police to be in attendance. The men

look very sulky & determined to have their way. I am afraid they are

getting in debt. There are about 450 miners out on strike here & the

wages they are refusing range from 10/- to 15/- per diem!



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21 Oct 90

We went up to Brunner yesterday morning but found such a storm

raging & got so wet & they have nothing but a kind of shed for us to

meet inwith no fire & perched on the brink of a high terrace on to

which we had to climb up a watercourseso that we struck at once and

came back by the return train bringing our first miner witness with us

& examined him all day in our office here. We got their side of the story

which turns out very sad. There are about 320 men out of work & even

if the Mines opened again today there would not be room for more thanabout 100.

Greymouth, 22 Oct 90

We are working as hard as we can but there are still some 20 witnesses

whose names have been suggested but there is a lot of them that I dont

see any need of hearing as they will only repeat the same stories. We

had three yesterday, an engineer & two miners one of whom Ansell is

considered a very turbulent character & is going to stand for Parliament.

He is a very hideous and rough looking chap but he proved quite quiet

in my handseven docile& I got a lot of point out of him. The other

miner was a splendid witness, a tall strapping fellow, frank & fearless

& truthful & not a bit anxious to push extreme issues. If all of them

were like him there would be no strikers & yet queer enough he was

put in as a wi tness by the other miners which to me shows that they

dont care about extreme unionism.

Greymouth Harbour Board, 23 Oct 90

During the last two days we have had great arguments with men who

are Unionists & out on strike as we were anxious to find out really what

is in their minds and to discuss something about their organization.

The poor men here have been quite deluded & there are about 2000

women & children very near starvation. Brunnerton is a very queer

place. The houses are built along the sides of a deep gorge in theMountains through which the Grey River rushes furiously in a narrow

cleft hundreds of feet deep. This is crossed by two suspension bridges

VIEW OF BRUNNERTON, WITH MINE BUILDINGS, CHIMNEY AND MINERS HOUSES IN THE CENTRE.

JH MENZIES



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MAX NETTLAU. LABADIE COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF

MICHIGAN.

& along the side of the gorge by the big mines you see the great coke

ovens & retorts throwing out a great blaze of light. The mines extend

into & under the mountains for miles by the turns & twists of the tunnels

but the furtherest in point is only 3/4 mile in a straight line from the

entrance. The other miners go down to the coal by shafts 660 ft deep &

they have worked out acres of coal right under the river.

Greymouth 25 Oct 90

I fancy we are to see the coal mines at work again on Mondayas the

strike is giving way. The miners here are getting frightened at last as

they hear that 119 men have been engaged in Dn [Dunedin] to take their

places. I dont think the mine can at present employ many more than

that number as owing to the long t ime it has been standing it is out of

order and the deep parts are full of water which will take 2 months to

pump out. I fear that at least 1500 men women & children will be thrown

out of employment without much hope. A bad feature is that many of

them have bought land & built houses out of their past earnings & ifthey have they will not find any purchasers as the men who are coming

have neither money nor credit.

The previous (#54, April 2012) issue of this journal included an article on the

Maori-speaking housepainter and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World)

member Percy Short. It noted that he left New Zealand in 1914 to evade

conscription and traveled around Europe and Asia, exchanging information

with other members of the IWW. Further information on his travels has since

been supplied by Christchurch historian Jared Davidson who located an interview

with Short conducted by the renowned anarchist and historian Max Nettlau.

A conversation with a syndicalist in New Zealand was most likely published

in the London-based anarchist paper Freedomin 1914, although the document

is undated. This has been translated by Taranaki LHP member Urs Signer, and

some extracts follow:

We had the pleasure to speak with a comrade from the antipodes who

has come to Europe to get to know the syndicalist movement of various

countries. A few weeks ago, the Auckland branch of the Industrial

Workers of the World received a letter from an official syndicalist

publication in Europe to gain an insight into the recent big strikes inNew Zealand. Our comrade Percy B. Short, together with another

comrade, was tasked to draft a response; but because Short was on his

way to England, it was decided that he would personally deliver the

answers and further information and also get an insight into the European

movement.

Having been a member of the Sydney I.W.W. branch for some time in

the past, Short has knowledge of the whole revolutionary-syndicalist

movement and we were pleased to be able to talk about both movements.

Our conversation was even more interesting because our comrade isMaori by birth, the son of a native of New Zealand, the people who are

more and more pushed to the side but keep standing tall with unbelievable



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energy and endurance.

...First of all we discussed the general forecast of revolutionary syndicalist

propaganda with comrade Short. We were thoroughly surprised when

told that this propaganda is particularly successful amongst Maori

because of the past of this people with their indigenous communism.

Amongst Maori, a worker who acts as a scab and steals the bread out

of comrades mouths is basically unheard of because their old sense of

solidarity stemming from their tribal customs prohibits such actions.

We talked at length about anti-militarist propaganda which has started

over the last few years since the introduction of military service in New

Zealand. Several young men, sentenced to jail, started a hunger strike,

just like the Suffragettes in England now. The anti-militarist movement

is still alive.

Finally, it was the trade union movement and the behavior towards the

conservative organisations that interested us the most:

Q: Are the conservative unions, we asked, who are organised under the

Arbitration Act gaining or losing influence?

A: At present, replied Short, 80,000 workers live in New Zealand. 65,000

of those are organised under the Arbitration Act and 15,000 under the

labour federation act. The latter settle their disputes with the employers

directly.

Q: And how are the strikes in your workers paradise, the country

without strikes and lock-outs, as our social reformers in Europe like to

call it?

A: The strikes are growing, both in terms of numbers and in intensity.

Q: And the law on strikes, which makes them il legal?

A: The compulsory Arbitration Act has had its head smashed in New

Zealand (Arbitration is killed in New Zealand).

Note: whether due to misinterpretation or deliberate misrepresentation, much of the

above information is misleading or downright false. For example, Maori had been

prominent among the s trikebreakers during the 1912 Waihi st rike, and in the pre-

WW1 period they showed little enthusiasm for joining revolutionary syndicalist

organisations such as the IWW. According to Percy Shorts descendants, althoughhe learned and later taught the Maori language, he was not himself of Maori ancestry.

The LHP regularly receives research queries from the public, and one arrived

recently from the descendant of a Canterbury man with the improbable name

of Montmorency Silas Valentine de Villiers. Despite sounding like a character

from PG Wodehouse, De Villiers was indeed born in New Zealand in 1919 and

signed up with the New Zealand Military Force (1st Canterbury Battalion) on

5 July 1940 at Christchurch, where he was described as being 5 foot 11 1/2inches tall and weighing 10 stone 7 pounds, with a fair complexion, grey/green

eyes and dark hair.



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His Attestation Form asked De Villiers to state any previous military service.

He answeredToledo 1938-39. Granada, ie in Spain during its 1936-39 civil

war. His relative asked for any information the LHP might be able to provide

on this war service, through our work on a 2006 seminar and subsequent book,

Kiwi CompaerosNew Zealand and the Spanish Civil War(Canterbury University

Press, 2009).

The reply, after consulting with professional researchers internationally, is that

De Villiers had almost certainly invented his Spanish combat experience. Both

Toledo and Granada were held by the rebel (ie Francoist, anti-Republican) forces

from the outbreak of the war, and by 1938 there was little or no fighting taking

place there. A foreign combatant serving on the rebel side in this period would

have been so unusual as to have certainly attracted media and official attention,

yet no records exist of anyone corresponding to De Villiers description.

Disappointingly for our inquirer, this intriguing forebear appears to be one of

many whose alleged Spanish Civil War experience does not withstand historical

investigation.


Union Report

LHP members are likely to enjoy watching "The

Union Report", a weekly summary of union news

presented by Auckland er provocateur Mar tyn

Bradbury and broadcast on Triangle TV at 8pm

each Monday night. Those outside the Auckland

coverage area can watch it on YouTube from the

following morning.


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At the time of writing, Wellington artist Genevieve Packer was working hard

on one of the few union banners produced in recent decades. Large, ornate

and powerfully symbolic banners, often constructed to be carried by two peopleat outdoor processions, were once prized possessions by many New Zealand

unions. Like most of this countrys union traditions, the custom of making and

displaying these banners was imported from the UK, where it remains a proud

and vibrant artform.

Bert Roth, the late and much-missed Auckland labour historian, says that,

The display of trade union banners was closely linked to the annual

processions commemorating and celebrating the introduction of the eight-

hour working day. These banners, says Bert, were an affirmation of pride,

a statement of purpose (often expressed in a short motto) and a call for support.

He adds that, nearly all of the hundred or more banners carried by

New Zealand unionists over the past century have long disappeared.

Their number, however, will soon be increased by one. Genevieves banner has

been specially commissioned by the NZ PSA to mark its centenary next year.

A nationwide contest was held to pick the winning design, with LHP chair

Mark Derby among the judges. Although progress on producing the winning

design is well advanced, you wont see even a glimpse of it in this i ssue of our

newsletter. PSA general secretary Brenda Pilott says, It seems right that our

members see it first and so this stirring and symbolic centennial project will

be first unveiled at a special PSA national congress in Wellington in September.

After that, the banner is likely to tour to a number of centres along with aspecially produced set of information panels, so that as many people as possible

are able to see it.

The 2013 centenary of the PSA will be marked with a number of projects in

addition to the commissioned banner. LHP committee member Mary-Ellen

OConnor has produced an oral history of the Associations last 25 years based

on in-depth interviews with a range of former and current PSA activists. An

ambitious centenary website is planned. And a major international conference

will take place in Wellington in July 2013. Its theme is the public realm and,

according to the organisers introductory statement, It will consider particularly

the role of the public sector in the shared relationship between the government

and civil society that underpins a successful modern democracy.

Among the questions which conference presenters are asked to address are:

Is the trend to privatising public services blurring the distinction

between the private and public sectors and weakening the public realm?

As policy advice is becoming increasingly contestable, is the role and

place of the public service clear, and who maintains the integrity of

research and analysis behind policy? How has work in the public sector changed, and how is it likely to

change further?


Stop Press

As we go to press, the LHP is happy to report the

reappearance of its very own banner, commissioned

in 1990 by the Trade Union History Project (as

we were then known). Longtime member Richard

Hill recalls "some vigorous debate within the

committee as to the relative merits of different

designs, but a (relatively rare, for those days!)

consensus over the eventual winner." The

magnificent TUHP banner has been carefully

stored by the EPMU and currently adorns the

tearoom of its head office in Lyall Bay, Wellington.


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The LHP is actively engaged in helping to plan this conference, and members

will be kept informed of developments.

As indicated in our last issue, planning is now well advanced for the seminar

and related activities to mark the centenary, this November, of the Waihi

goldminers strike. This event has the title, Remember Waihi, a phrase widely

used by the union movement in the years following the strike, to simultaneously

urge solidarity in the face of the kind of oppression that killed striker Fred

Evans, and caution at challenging powerful and ruthless vested interests.

The seminar begins at 8.30am on Saturday 10 November in the Community

Hall (the site of the former Miners Hall) in Waihis main street. In the afternoon

it continues in the smaller Friendship Hall nearby. A full program of speakers

from both New Zealand and Australia will offer papers on many facets of the

still highly contentious issue. This will be followed at 5.30 pm by the openingof Wellington artist Bob Kerrs exhibition of paintings titled Gold Strike, and

at 8pm by a variety concert. The following morning there will be a memorial

ceremony for Fred Evans on the site of his death, led by Auckland writer Chris

Trotter.

To register for the seminar, or for more information, contact: Joce Jesson, email

jg. [email protected] , ph. 09 622 2142.

Next year will also mark the centenary of a bitter industrial dispute involvingsome 16,000 workers, monster demonstrations and a wave of violence on a

scale that, arguably, has yet to be matched. The series of spontaneous strikes,

known as the Great Strike of 1913, stretched across New Zealand and reached

almost all corners of society rural farmers who volunteered their services to

help bring about order, workers and their wives and children, those in positions

of power (police, politicians, and the legal system), and employers.

To mark this profoundly transformative episode in our history, the LHP proposes

to create an interactive online website called 1913 - War on the Wharves. This

will make available collections of primary documents such as personal letters,

photos and diaries, and other historical material, via an interactive digital map

of New Zealand. It will be a participatory project with a high level of community

input. Local researchers such as high school students and others could locate

and propose documents from their own geographical areas.

Several major public institutions have so far indicated support in principle for

the website. The LHP is now seeking project partners, funding and other forms

of support to make this innovative project possible. To find out more, or to

become involved, contact: Jared Davidson, email [email protected]


Sharing transport to Waihi seminar

If you wish to share transport to the November

seminar with others;from Auckland an d poi nts north, contact:

FIRST Union ph. 0800 863 477

from Welling ton and points south , co ntact :

Paul Tolich, EPMU, email

[email protected]


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On 1 May this year, the proposed Italian Society for Labour History (Societ

Italiana per la Storia del Lavoro, or SISLav) held its first meeting in Reggio

Emilia. An English-language version its manifesto can be found at:

http://storialavoro.wordpress.com/english/for-an-italian-scholarly-society-of-labour-

history/

This first meeting was followed by a working seminar in Rome with the title

La Storia come Storia del Lavoro (History as Labour History). The formal

foundation of the Society is scheduled to be held in Milan by early October.

Woody Guthrie, the radical musician who wrote more than 3 ,000 songs, was

born 100 years ago this July. In April the University of Southern Californiahosted a day-long conference on Woodys life and political influence, followed

by a concert with Jackson Browne, David Crosby and Graham Nash, Tom

Morello, Kris Kristofferson, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody's

granddaughter) and others. In addition, British singer Billy Bragg recently

performed an entire series of tribute concerts in the US. The official centenary

website is at http://www.woody100.com/

Your editor, like many other New Zealanders of a similar age, was taught

Guthries best-known song, This Land is Your Land, at primary school,

but never with the full l yrics, such as the following verse:

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, Id seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

The LHP was among more than 100 signatories to a petition sent to West

Virginias legislators in June, urging them to create a permanent park to

commemorate the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain. This battle, the largest armed

confrontation in US labour history, took place when members of the United

Mine Workers tried to unionise the coalfields of southern West Virginia, and

were opposed by 3,000 law enforcement officers, many of whom worked directly

for the coal companies.

A mining company has now stated its intention to develop mountaintop removal

mines on the site of the battle. The petition calls instead for a 1,600-acre Historic

Blair Mountain Park. For more information, see:

lawcha.nfshost.com/wordpress/2012/06/.../friends-of-blair-mountain/



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Music has long been part of trade unionism and leftwing political action in

New Zealand. Song, especially, has proved a potent means of expression, with

the act of group singing in itself serving as a powerful demonstration of

collective engagement. Songbooks provide valuable evidence of this musical

tradition and one of the most interesting local examples is Kiwi Youth Sings,

a soft-cover anthology of leftwing, student and folk material published during

the tumultuous year of 1951. Compiled within the Socialist Club at Victoria

University College (VUC), it gives many insights into student socialist activity

during this key period. The songbook is also significant as an early work by

one of the editors, Conrad Bollinger, author ofGrogs Own Country(1959)

and the Seamens Union history Against the Wind(1968).1 This article, based

upon my research into the VUC Tramping Club (whose membership overlapped

with the Socialist Clubs), discusses the background, content, and legacy of

Kiwi Youth Sings (Bollinger and Grange 1951). It remains exploratory, however,and any corrections or additional information readers can offer would be

much appreciated.

Michael Brown

Many Happy Song-sessions:

COVER OF KIWI YOUTH SINGS. MICHAEL BROWN

1. Con Bollinger was recalled by his grand-

daughter Etta in the Labour History Project

Journal issue 51, April 2011 ed.


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In the decade after World War II, there was a thriving leftwing scene at Victoria

University College. While Victoria already had something of a reputation for

political radicalism, the mass enrolment of returned servicemenincluding

many with committed Marxist viewpoints strengthened by wartime experience

sparked new interest. They were instrumental in founding the Socialist Club

in 1946 to organise campus talks, debates, and film screenings. Club activities

stepped up a notch with the onset of the Cold War, as New Zealand governments

took an increasingly conservative tack. As ex-serviceman Pip Piper told me:

the war finished and we thought, well, weve beaten Hitler and the

Japanese and Fascism in general... you know, the sun is start ing to shine

on democracy. Then, of course, things didnt quite work out that way...

so that made one think, well, what the hell were we doing a few years

ago? (interview, 7 March 2008)

Pip Piper, Ron Smith, Harry Evison and Harold Dowrick were among those

who subsequently led street protests against Dutch attacks on Indonesia (1947)

and compulsory military training (1949). Members also lent clandestine support

to the Waterfront Workers Union during the 1951 lockout (Bollinger 1957;

Hamilton 2002:96-98, 105-106).

Singing was popular in VUC Socialist Club circles and the creation of a

customised song book like Kiwi Youth Sings a fairly natural extension. Its editorswere Neil Grange and Conrad Bollinger, former secretary of the club and

assistant editor on student magazine Salient. Interestingly, the publication of

the songbook came as a surprise to many in the Socialist Club, according to

the late Hugh Price (pers. comm. 13 June 2008). Significantly, it was printed

not in Wellington but by an Auckland firm with leftwing sympathies (Wilson

Printery), suggesting that the editors may have kept it under wraps to forestall

potential censorship under the Emergency Regulations instituted in 1951.

Kiwi Youth Sings was officially published by the Student Labour Federation

to which leftwing groups at universities around the country were affiliated

and a non-student equivalent, the Progressive Youth League, thus giving it

national distribution. On the first page, the editors set out their aims andsuggested how the book could be used:

SOCIALIST CLUB FLOAT IN ANNUAL CAPPING

WEEK PROCESH, WELLINGTON, MAY 1953.

FROM LEFT, DAVID SOMERSET, CHRIS BEEBY,

SUE RIX-TROTT AND OTHERS UNKNOWN.

REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF

MARY MOWBRAY AND TREVOR MOWBRAY


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COVER OF YOUTH SINGS. MICHAEL BROWN

We aim to present for the first time in a single book the words of songs

sung by young socialist workers and students throughout New Zealand....

We hope the collection as it stands will serve as a basis for many happy

song-sessions in crowded flats, at week-end schools, on the beach at

summer camps and around the fires in tramping huts. Above all, we

hope that through the singing of these songs many more young people

will be drawn into the struggle for peace, for higher living standards

and greater freedomin short, the struggle for socialism.

The 134 songs in Kiwi Youth Sings are organised into three partsSongs of

struggle, Youth and student songs and Folk songs. Many items are accompanied

by brief explanatory notes. The selection is eclectic, encompassing leftwing

classics (The Internationale, Joe Hill), British socialist anthems (March

of the workers), Irish rebel songs (Kevin Barry), American Wobbly parodies

(Pie in the sky), Spanish Civil War items (The four insurgent generals),

the Soviet Unions national anthem (Flag of the Soviets) and some Australian

and New Zealand songs, along with general material like All through thenight, Funicul, funicul, and Go down, Moses. The overall mixture

shows the numerous influences that fed into the singsong culture of the

VUC Socialist Club.

The inclusion of certain songs provides interesting evidence of the clubs

international connections. The World War II Italian partisan song, E le stellette,

for example, was probably learned firsthand by an ex-serviceman student and

thence passed to the editors. Many items were directly taken from Youth Sings/

/La Juventud Canta/La Jeunesse Chante (Anon. 1949), whose

structure and English title also influenced the New Zealand songbook. Youth

Sings was published in Prague by the International Union of Students for the

1949 World Festival of Youth and Students, convened in Budapest with a similar

organisation, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY). The VUC

Students Association was in fact affiliated with the WFYD (informally known

as Woofdee) between 1946 and 1950, and, according to Bollinger, delegates

usually graduates who chanced to be in Europewere sent regularly to its

gatherings (1957:41). Kiwi Youth Sings is itself dedicated to a Sydney festival

planned for 1952 and certain songs may have been picked up at earlier

Australasian conclaves. One song note also mentions the inaugural 1949 student

congress held at Curious Cove in the Marlborough Sounds where, apparently,

Bump me into parliamentby Australian Wobbly organiser William Casey

was used to heckle a guest speaker:

This song was sung by students at the New Zealand University Students

Association Congress at Curious Cove in January, 1949, just as Ormond

Wilson, then Fabian L.P. member for Palmerston North, was commencing

his address.

Bump me into Parliament,

Bounce me any wa-ay

Bump me into Parliament,

On next Election Day.

A highlight ofKiwi Youth Sings are 21 New Zealand songs. Included as Folksongs are several Maori items and tramping parodies, along with Weeping

and wailing (a.k.a. Aidle-o boy), a traditional ballad about reluctant parenthood


18/45


which was highly popular with students before the advent of the contraceptive

pill. The Youth and student songs section contains mainly politically orientated

material. Some songs were highly topical. The basic wage song, for example,

parodied the hit Dinah Shore song Buttons and bows for the 1949 Trade Union

Basic Wage Campaign:

The bosses say weve too much pay

I guess they ought to know

But what with food and coal and wood,

And bargain pays that are no good.

Weve got no dough for buttons and bows.

Several protest numbers come from World War II. The C.S.R. and the Suva

snobs records the discontent felt by some New Zealand soldiers stationed in

Fiji who were helping, in effect, to guard Colonial Sugar Refining Company

operations from a potential worker uprising:

For theyve never tasted freedom

And their wages hardly feed em,

As relentlessly they bleed em,

Do the bloody C.S.R.

Eight songs are taken from recent VUC extravsannual capping shows

combining musical parody, ribald humour, and satire on current affairs (Smith

2007). In the late 1930s and 1940s, extravs were particularly critical of the New

Zealand political establishment. Kiwi Youth Sings includes three numbers from

Ron Meeks notorious 1941 extrav, Jonnalio (the title is a play on John A. Lee

and Pinocchio), which targeted the first Labour governments infighting and

authoritarian approach. The editorial notes to these songs in Kiwi Youth Sings

may have helped reinforce the story that Jonnalio was banned for its seditious

content by the New Zealand government under wartime regulations. In fact,

it was more likely self-censored by a nervous student executive (see Hamilton

2002:94). A parody of The gendarmes duet has the characters of the Fox

(Peter Fraser) and Cat (Bob Semple) crooning:

Were renowned in song and story,

For our rather ruddy tint,

But the records of our glory

Were glad to say are out of print.

Mockery of the Labour Partys perceived abandonment of its original socialist

principles continued in late 1940s extravs. By this stage, however, compelling

new targets were emerging, including American Cold War imperialism and

press hysteria over red infiltrators. The latter is satirised in the 1949Jubileevi t?

number The communist under the bed, which includes a topical verse referring

to the Cecil Holmes satchel affair at the National Film Unit:

Come rally, you citizens, hark to my song,

For Ive found an excuse for whatever goes wrong;

When theres trouble with unions, elections ahead,

Just look for the Communist under the bed....


19/45


We must call in the aid of an army of narks

Against Bolshevik plots by some Film Unit clerks,

For a typist with dangerous thoughts in her head

May well be the Communist under the bed.

The subject of red baiting was rather close to home for the Socialist Club,

given that some members also belonged to the University Branch of the

Communist Party. Needless to say, the club always encompassed a much wider

range of leftwing viewpoints, including scepticism about strict party line

dogma. Freedom of thought, several ex-members have told me, was regarded

as a higher ideal. This political breadth is reflected both in Kiwi Youth Sings

repertoire mixture, as outlined above, and the inclusion of items like Red fly

the banners-o! and Harry Pollitt which poke affectionate fun at leftwing icons.

Unfortunately, this did not prevent the VUC Socialist Club from being infiltrated

by the police Special Branch soon afterwards over a periodical, Newsquote,

being edited by three members (one of whom was the writers father).

Despite consisting solely of already-published material from reputable Westernnewspapers and journalsalbeit usually questioning aspects of the Cold War

consensusSpecial Branch deemed Newsquote highly subversive and the

students suffered a variety of unofficial McCarthyesque reprisals (Price 1989;

Hamilton 2002:105).

In retrospect, Kiwi Youth Sings can be seen as a kind of musical self-portrait

of the VUC Socialist Club at its peak, when the club was inspired by both the

ex-servicemens example and international student socialism, and goaded into

action by a conservative sea change in New Zealand politics. By 1957, however,

the club had become inactive and it was not revived again until students returned

en masse to leftwing causes in the late 1960s (Hamilton 2002:135-136). Kiwi

Youth Sings would have some ongoing influence, nonetheless, as a stimulus

for singsongs and source of material for later student songbooks. Leftwing

columnist Chris Trotter, a student activist in the 1970s and 1980s, recently cited

the anthology on his blog (see: http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/songs-

of-our-fathers.html). Another legacy ofKiwi Youth Sings, as possibly the first

anthology to feature a New Zealand folk songs section, was in anticipating and

encouraging the collecting of local folksong by Rona Bailey, Bert Roth, and

others in the 1950s and 1960s. It also remains relevant todaymany songs

remain socialist evergreens, others, included some quoted above, are becoming

curiously topical once again. Copies ofKiwi Youth Sings are held by the Alexander

Turnbull Library, and the libraries of Victoria University of Wellington and

University of Auckland.

Michael Brown is a Wellington musician and music historian. He and other Labour

History Project members gave a short programme of songs fromKiwi Youth Sings,

with audience participation encouraged, at the LHPs recent AGM.

Anon. (ed.), 1949, Youth Sings/ /La Juventud Canta/La Jeunesse Chante.

Prague: International Union of Students.

Bollinger, Conrad, 1957, 'The Noise of Battle - Recent Political Activities at V.U.C.' in The Spike,

vol.36: 40-44.

Bollinger, Conrad and Neil Grange (eds.), 1951, Kiwi Youth Sings. Wellington: New Zealand

Student Labour Federation/New Zealand Progressive Youth League.


20/45


Hamilton, Stephen, 2002, A Radical Tradition a History of the Victoria University of Wellington

Students Association. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington Students Association.

Price, Hugh, 1989, 'The SIS File' in Civil Liberty, no.37: 22-24.

Smith, Moira, 2007, 'The Ephemeral Tradition of Extravaganza' in Journ al of Folklo re Resear ch,

vol.44 no.2-3: 249-278.

In July 1911 William Cornish Jnr, a young conscientious objector from Brooklyn,

Wellington, stood before Magistrate Riddell on charges of refusing to register

under the Defence Act of 1909. Amended in 1910 and finally enforced in April

1911, the Act required compulsory registration of all men between the ages of

14 and 30 as an attempt to re-organize [New Zealands] defence forces along

the lines agreed to at the Imperial Naval and Mili tary Conference held in

London in 1909.1 Cornish Jnr, having no intention of obeying the law and

prepared to take the consequences, refused to pay the 4 fine. Instead, hewas sentenced to 21 days in jailbecoming, according to Ryan Bodman, the

first Pakeha political prisoner in the nations history.2

Jared Davidson

Socialist Cross of Honor: markingsof a working class counter-culture

THE NEW ZEALAND SOCIALIST PARTYS SOCIALIST CROSS OF HONOR. JARED DAVIDSON


21/45


William Cornish Snr shared his sons sentiment and echoed the rumblings of

an antimilitarist movement gathering momentuma movement angered by

creeping militarism and state curtailment of liberty. What is this terrible

offence for which my son is punished? wrote Cornish Snr to the Evening Post.

He refuses to register himself like a dog. A dog registered and collared! He

concluded defiantly:

My son is told to defend his country. He has got to defend his fathers

property. And how much property has his father got? None. Nine-tenths

of the working classthe class I belong tohave no property; therefore

it means that the ruling classthe capitalistshave got the cheek and

impudence to ask the sons of the workers to defend their property I

am happy and proud to be the father of such a noble son who has the

courage to say: No! No! No!3

Harry Cooke, son of the New Zealand Socialist Partys (NZSP) Christchurch

secretary Fred Cooke, was another young objector who said No! No! No! tothe fine and was sent to jail. He was not the last. Backed by antimilitarist

groups like Louise Christies Anti-Militarist League and Charles Mackies

National Peace Council, along with working class bodies such as the NZSP,

the Federation of Labor and the Passive Resisters Union (PRU), youths across

New Zealand were refusing registration and compulsory military training in

large numbers. By 1913 the Maoriland Worker, which started a Roll of Honour

on the jailing of Cornish Jnr, had 94 names listed (many with double sentences),

while prosecutions under the Act had reached a figure of 7030.

Yet despite the statistics, antimilitarist shirkers and anti-defenders were in

the minority - a movement on the margins of a highly conformist culture. They

were often ridiculed by the mainstream presswe have precious little sympathy

with the silly, notoriety-craving youths, wrote one scathing editor.4 Therefore,

the support of collective associations like the NZSP and the PRU formed an

important part of resisting militarism in its various forms, and dealing with

the reprisals. With the creation of these associations came a working class

counterculture with its own institutions, values and symbols, a means of

defining and winning space within the social structure.5 Newspapers, banners,

badges, slogans, songs, social events, physical spaces and social relationships

were just some of the ways working people expressed their solidarity. PRU

members wore distinctive red, white and gold badges on their jackets, published

the spritely Repealand had their own hockey team with bright red uniforms

and big crowds to watch them on Saturday which highlights the popularity oftheir cause.6 The NZSP had its halls, Sunday schools, stationery (the red flag

and Socialist motto being very prominent) and in 1912 even considered

purchasing their own van.7

So when Cornish Jnr and Harry Cooke were imprisoned, the communities of

which they were a part rallied together in true countercultural fashion. Although

a demonstration planned at the prison gates was foiled when Cornish Jnr was

released an hour early, the Wellington socialists threw two receptions for him

at the Socialist Hall. The first, attended by a crowd of over 300, saw Cornish

Jnr receive a medal from the Runanga Anti-Conscription Leaguepossibly the

first celebratory medal of its kind in the history of the New Zealand labourmovement. Speaking on behalf of the League, Robert Semple congratulated

Cornish on defying an immoral law before presenting him with a handsome


22/45


gold medal, which bears the following inscription:Presented to W. Cornish,

junr., by the Runanga Anti-Conscription League. 26/7/11.8 The following

night saw Cornish Jnr receive a second medal the Socialist Cross of Honor:

The design of this cross is based on the Victoria Cross. On the centre

shield are engraved the name of the NZ Socialist Party, the number and

the name of the boy. In the centre are a red flag and the words Anti-

Militarism and at the bottom is writ ten For Courage9

Cooke received his Socialist Cross in a similar ceremony a month later, presented

by the Christchurch NZSP in front of a crowd of 200.

Cartoonist William Blomfield, well known for his anti-socialist satire, was quick

to jump on the paradox of anti-militarists receiving medals. His drawing of a

menacing Cornish Jnrmedals abreast and Union Jack torn in his handsis

like a patriotic poster gone awry. All the elements are there: flags, conscription

posters and medals portrayed in a way to stir even the mildest patriot, but for

all the wrong reasons. The paradox was not lost on the NZSP. Many may askwhy the Socialist Party is initiating the military authorities and their barbaric

symbols of slaughter, wrote Fred Cooke. We answer that our cross is symbolical


23/45


of peace and brotherhood, and in after life the boys who have gained them can

justly boast of striking a blow for liberty and fraternity.10 Indeed, as the British

cultural theorist Raymond Williams has pointed out, the crucial difference

between the elite and the working class in cultural terms was not language,

not dress, not leisure but between alternative ideas of the nature of social

relationships.11 The Socialist Cross may have been a medal originally based

on militarist conquest, but in the hands of the working class its social value

was immensely different.

It is not known how many of these unique medals were produced. By mid-

1912 the NZSP was appealing for funds to keep the practice going: there are

a number of crosses in the course of being finished, and by appearances we

shall require a larger number than was anticipated.12 References to the Socialist

Cross disappear from the Maoriland Workerafter June 1912 and they are missing

from collectors-catalogues such as Leon Morels Catalogue of Medals, Medalets,

Medallions of New Zealand, 1865-1940. It appears none are held in any cultural

heritage institutions, making them even rarer.

So imagine my surprise when, after giving a talk on New Zealands labour

movement at Occupy Christchurch (in walking distance of the PRUs former

headquarters, the Addington Railway Workshops), I was approached by a man

named Walter Dobbs claiming to have PRU badges in his possession. At that

stage I had no idea any such medals existed, and assumed Walter simply meant

the gold PRU badges worn by its members. Instead, in his Addington storage

unit, he presented me with not one but two Socialist Crosses. A cross with the

faded inscription #24 was in poor condition, but the Socialist Cross of Honor

#5, given to PRU founder James Kirkwood Worrall after imprisonment on 5

March 1912, was as good as new.

Walter also had transcribed copies of Worralls letters from Ripapa Island in

Lyttelton Harbour, an internment camp for conscientious objectors. Marched

through Lyttelton at the point of bayonets, Worrall and other resisters were

shipped to the island in June 1913 where they soon refused to clean weaponry

and carry out military drill. They were placed on half-rations, to which ten of

the PRU members responded with a hunger st rike.13 As well as letters to his

mother describing the hunger strike and island conditions, Worrall and Reg

Williams managed to get an impassioned plea to the Labour Unity Conference

being held in Wellington, causing the entire group of over 400 delegates to

march on Parliament and demand a hearing wi th Prime Minster William

Massey:

It is now the morning of July 2, and ten of us have refused the fifth

meal offered us. Three of our number are ill, one seriously. It makes

no difference, however, as we have decided that unless we are allowed

to return to the barrack room and given our full rations, we will be

carried off the island dead, or as near dead as our tormentors will allow

us to get Our message to you, our comrades, is to fight hard. No

quarter! No compromise! No surrender! We are prepared to play the

game to the last: all we ask is for you to do the same. Let the world know

that this little country is game enough to challenge the power of the

military autocracy which is threatening to overwhelm the world, and isruining the workers of the world.14

Top: JAMES WORRAL (LEFT) AND HIS BROTHER

WEARING THEIR PRU BADGES. JARED DAVIDSON

Above: RNZAF AERIAL PHOTO OF RIPAPA ISLAND

(AND FORT JERVOIS), 1957.


24/45


Massey called an immediate Cabinet meeting and the following day promised

the conference that conditions on the island would be improved, military drill

would not be enforced and inquiries into all complaints would be made.

Although not the unconditional release originally demanded, the hunger strikers

and resulting publicity had won their point. 15

These letters give a rare insight into the fraught activity of antimilitarists like

Worrall and highlight the importance of both collective and family support,

the latter being a key but under-examined institution.16 With your letters time

passes fairly quickly, wrote Worrall to his mother, just after the hunger strike,

I received Fathers note, and was very disappointed that he could not

come across I hope that Father left the fruit across there, because I

feel fit to eat some. Perhaps you may be able to come another day this

weektry, anyway, because I want Father to see the place. Dont forget

to make things hot outside. I will write more soon. Dont worry, we will

win yet. Dont forget the fruit. W Hooper and I are wait ing for it.17

Likewise, the Socialist Cross and corresponding letters shown to me by Walter

highlight how much important archival material relating to the labour movement

exists in private collections, its value often unknown to their owners. Sadly, in

a time of cuts and mergers, archival outreach is often the last thing on a heritage

ministers mind. That is why labour history and accounts of our working past

are importantthe continuation of a working class counter-culture held dear

to those that struggled to create it. As Fred Cooke wrote in 1911, in the future,

when working-class history comes to be written, our Cross will be held in high

esteem.18

Jared Davidson is a Christchurch cultural activist , and the designer of this journal .

1. R.L. Weitzel, Pacifists and Anti-militarists, 19091914, New Zealand Journal of History, 1973, p.128.

2. Maoriland Worker, 14 July 1911; Ryan Bodman, Dont be a Conscript, be a Man! A History of the

Passive Resisters Union, 1912-1914, Masters Dissertation, University of Auckland, 2010, p.8.

3. Evening Post, 10 July 1911.

4. Marlborough Express, 7 April 1913.

5. Bill Osgerby, as cited by Alan Howkins. Labour and Culture: mapping the field in John Martin

& Kerry Taylor, (eds.), Culture and the Labour Movement: essays in New Zealand Labour History,

Dunmore Press, 1991, p.26.6. Maoriland Worker, 28 June 1912. Special thanks to Ryan Bodman for pointing this out to me.

7. NZ Truth, 5 August 1911.

8. Maoriland Worker, 11 August 1911.


10. Maoriland Worker, 12 April 1912.

11. Howkins. Labour and Culture: mapping the field, p.25.

12. Maoriland Worker, 12 April 1912.

13. Bodman, Dont be a Conscript, be a Man!, p.21.

14. NZ Truth, 5 July 1913.

15. Bert Roth, The Prisoners of Ripa Island, Here and Now, November 1954, p.18.

16. Melanie Nolan, Family and Culture: Jack and Maggie McCullough and the Christchurch Skilled

Working Class, 1880s-1920s in Culture and the Labour Movement, p.164.

17. James Worrall, letter to his mother, 2 July 1913, private collection.



25/45


The small West Coast town of Runanga, in the north of the Grey Valley, boasts

one of New Zealand labour historys most significant buildings. The Runanga

Miners Hall reflects local community history along with the broader histories

of unions, the political labour movement, and of working people in general.

In recent years the local group Friends of the Runanga Miners Hall have been

trying to restore the hall. Unfortunately it now faces a new threat as the Grey

District Council has red-stickered the building as an earthquake threat.

The opening, in 1901, of the state mine at Coal Creek near Runanga launched

the Seddon regimes major experiment in government operated coal mining.

The towns of Runanga, a government initiative, and Dunollie, a privately

sponsored venture, were established to house the miners and their families.

The first coal from Runanga was shipped out in 1904. In September of that

year the miners formed the Runanga District Coal Mine Workers Industrial

Union of Workers. Robert Fighting Bob Semple was their first president.

Semple had been forced to leave the coal mines of South Gippsland in Victoria

after being blacklisted in the bitter strike of 1903.

In the early 20th century New Zealands industrial relations were to a large

extent governed by the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894. William

Pember Reeves, the architect of the Act, intended that it would protect workers,encourage moderate unionism, and regulate decent work conditions while a t

the same time preventing strikes. In 1904 the Arbitration Act was still regarded

Peter Clayworth

Runanga Miners Hall:the early years 1908-1920

MINERS HALL, RUNANGA (C.1910). QUINN, JOSEPH:

NEGATIVES AND PRINTS FROM PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO

OPERATED BY JAMES RING AND LA INKSTER. REF 1/2-

179351-G. ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY, WELLINGTON,

NEW ZEALAND.


26/45


by unionists as largely beneficial to workers. It did not cover rural labourers,

domestic servants or state employees. Thus, as state employees, the state coal

mining unions first successful campaign was to get registered under the Act,

which technically did not apply to them. It is ironic that Bob Semple led the

union into gaining registration. Semple later achieved fame, or notoriety, for

leading militant union opposition to the Arbitration Act in the Red Fed years,

from 1908 to 1913.

The Miners Union was based in both Runanga and Dunollie, holding its early

meetings in sites such as the Dunollie Hotel and the Dunollie Druids Hall.

The two towns had a number of venues for community events. The Runanga

Tennis Club Ball was held at the Dunollie Druids Hall in April 1907, while the

Library Committee held a financially successful dance at the same venue in

September of the same year. A lantern lecture on The Progress of the Church

in New Zealand was held in the Runanga School Hall in June 1907. By 1908

Runanga also had a Masonic lodge, with its own hall for meetings. Runanga,

with a town council dominated by members of the Miners Union, was knownin the conservative press as a hotbed of radicalism. In June of 1908 the leader

of the 1889 London Dockers Strike, the legendary Tom Mann, spoke at the

Dunollie Druids Hall. The Miners Union itself was actively involved in

community activities, one example being the use of union funds to establish

a Co-operative Society, which had a store up and running by 1906.

In early 1907 the Miners Union decided they needed their own hall. The

planning for the halls construction was conducted by the unions executive

committee, while the plans for the hall it self were carried out by architect

George Millar. Construction was carried out by Mr Murray and his staff. The

hall was opened with celebrations in December 1908, with a special train from

Greymouth bringing people up for the festivities. The new hall was adorned

with slogans made popular throughout the industrialised world by the militant

working class: Worlds Wealth for the Worlds Workers: United We Stand

Divided We Fall. James Begg Kent, MP for Westland from 1947 to 1960, stated

in later years that as a young activist he painted the slogans at the instigation

of Red Fed activist Pat Hickey. (Letter J B Kent to J Weir, 21 Aug 1966).

From the beginning the hall was used for union meetings, as well as for the

public meetings of labour movement speakers and for meetings of the Runanga

Co-operative Society. The hall was the venue where the Miners Union decided

on action to deal with workplace and community issues. Thus in February 1919

the Miners Union called a stopwork meeting to discuss the need for a medicalofficer for Runanga. The meeting, presided over by H. Coppersmith, mayor of

Runanga and president of the Runanga Medical Association, decided to strike

until the government appointed a replacement for the retiring Dr. Meade.

Another meeting in 1920 protested over the quality of rail transport to the mine.

Union meetings at the Miners Hall were not confined to the miners. In 1920

Arthur Cook, president of the NZ Workers Union (NZWU) and an advocate of

One Big Union, held a meeting at the hall. Cook addressed the Runanga

section of railway construction workers, who resolved to join the NZWU.

Women were also labour orators. In 1909 Mrs Glover was recorded as speaking

at length on Women and Socialism, during her West Coast tour. A womensbranch of the Socialist Party was established at Runanga in August 1911. Women

were also often prominent among the prohibition speakers who frequently


27/45


spoke at the hall and among the entertainers who performed there. Yet despite

the rhetoric of Runangas unionists in support of Britains suffragettes and of

womens rights in general, women carried out largely traditional roles in the

operation of the hall. Most of the organising committees seem to have been

male dominated, while energetic ladies committees provided the food for

functions. Women appear to have carried out many of the less glamorous but

essential roles in keeping the hall going.

Prominent Red Feds such as Bob Semple, Pat Hickey and Paddy Webb all spoke

regularly at the Miners Hall in the early years. Webb and Hickey were both

Runanga residents during 1909 and 1910. Other socialist activists such as

Robert Hogg, a Socialist Party activist and later editor ofNZ Truth, were hall

orators. Paddy Webb, following his election in 1913 as the first Labour MP for

Grey, regularly used the hall as a venue to address constituents. So did his

successor, Labour Party leader Harry Holland. In February 1919, Holland used

the Miners Hall as the platform to launch Labours national election campaign.

The hall was not only used by Labour candidates. During the 1913 election

campaign both Mr H L Michel, the Reform candidate, and Mr Hannan, the

Liberal candidate, addressed voters in the hall. Their meetings were well

attended but with audiences not generally as supportive as those for the Labour

candidates.

The Miners Hall was important for local government and for such worthy local

organisations as the Runanga Beautifying Society. The town clerks office for

the borough of Runanga was, in the 1910s, located in the hall. The mayor andthe six borough councillors were usually members of the Miners Union. In

1919 the Runanga returning officer was one G R Hunter. George Hunter, also

the chair of the Co-operative Society, was Paddy Webbs closest old comrade.

Like Webb he was a miner from Victoria and one of the seven men whose

sacking sparked the 1908 Blackball strike.

Prominent social issues were promulgated from the hall. Throughout the 1910s

speakers on the hot issue of prohibition spoke there. They included the visiting

British MP and socialist reformer Phillip Snowden and his wife Ethel. Ethel

Snowden, suffragette and temperance campaigner, was described in the

advertising as the most brilliant woman speaker in the Empire. The Snowdensspoke in favour of national prohibition in October 1914. In 1918 Canadian

visitors James Simpson of the Trades and Labour Council, and Mr W D Bayley,

BOB SEMPLE (LEFT), PADDY WEB (CENTRE) AND PAT HICKEY (RIGHT).


28/45


professor of economics at Winnipeg, were prohibitionist speakers at Runanga.

The labour movement held meetings discussing local and international issues.

In May 1920 Paddy Webb chaired a meeting at which Bob Semple called for

financial support for an ongoing strike among the miners of Broken Hill.

The Runanga brass band led the crowd in singing labour songs, including

The Red Flag. Semple reminded the large and enthusiastic crowd that the

Broken Hill miners had consistently supported their comrades in New Zealand

during strikes. The meeting closed with cheers for Semple and for the Broken

Hill miners.

In September 1920 Paddy Webb chaired another meeting held under the

auspices of the Labour Representative Council. This time music was provided

by the Runanga silver band, with the familiar crowd singing of The Red Flag.

The band was followed by an address by a Mr Zekull, a representative of the

Russian Bolsheviks. The assembly unanimously endorsed a motion protesting

against foreign intervention in the Russian civil war. A second motion supportingself-determination for Ireland was passed with one dissenter, James Simpson,

a member of the Protestant Peoples Association. Simpson claimed that Sinn

Fein was a nationalist movement, whereas the labour movement should be

internationalist. The meeting unanimously passed a third resolution calling

for the removal of laws that continued to discriminate against conscientious

objectors, and closed with three cheers for Russia.

The issues of war, pacifism and conscription received considerable attention

at Runanga. In September 1914 the Grey River Argus reported with glee that

250 people had attended a meeting to set up a patriotic fund in Runanga.

The Argus was later well known as a labour paper, but did not become so until

1919. In the early 1910s the Argus often referred to town and union leaders

as the Runanga clique. Mr G Millar (perhaps the same George Millar who

designed the hall) chaired the 1914 patriotic fund meeting, which resolved to

hold a fund raising concert. The Miners Union at this time seems to have also

suffered from a fit of patriotism, offering the hall for the concert free of charge.

This meeting was closed with the singing of God Save the King, rather than

the usual Red Flag. A series of further concerts and picture shows were

arranged to raise funds for the war effort.

As the war progressed Runanga returned to its old radical form. In August

1916 meetings in towns around the country voted in support of a motion put

forward by the Massey-Ward coalition government affirming New Zealandsdetermination to carry the war to an end. The Argus, in an article entitled

Discordant Note in Red Stronghold, noted that a Runanga meeting voted by

24 to 12 to reject the government motion.

The Miners Hall was not just a site for political or social improvement activities.

From the earliest it was a place of entertainment, with regular showings from

travelling movie companies. In March 1909 Perrys Electric Biorama presented

a string of short movies including For the Sake of His Uniform, Infernal Music

and Cabbys Sweetheart, interspersed with beautiful songs and duets from

the Sisters Brady accompanied by colourful lantern slides. Travelling companies

such as Pollards Pictures and Peerless Pictures regularly brought the picturesto Runanga. The Miners Hall was the regular venue. In later years movies

starring such silent screen legends as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks,


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Mary Pickford, and Mabel Normand were shown. Titles included Tarzan of the

Apes, an astonishing jungle drama, and that stupendous picture production,

W D Griffiths epic Intolerance. The features were usually accompanied by

serials such as The House of Hate and The Lightning Raiders. Some of the shows

were considered racy or scandalous; Mabel Normands Mickeywas restricted

to those over 15 years old, by order of the Health Department. The film

Damaged Goods, on the subject of venereal disease, was considered so

controversial that separate sessions were held for men and women.

The hall was also the venue for visiting performers and lecturers. The Dandies

of 1920 performed their celebrated costume entertainment. In 1910 Mrs

Perkins performed with a chorus of 50 voices and a full orchestra. A special

train was put on from Greymouth to allow the townfolks attendance. The

Valdares and Garrison Vaudeville Company performed in 1911 with their Roman

Maids and Reggiardo with his t rained poodles. In another show Mr Victor

lectured on Science and the Soul, followed by a clairvoyant performance. Zoe

the clairvoyant boy also performed with a travelling picture show. The celebrated

Huddersfield Bell Ringers, the finest in the World, put on a concert at the hall

in 1912. On another evening the Marist Brothers performed solos, duets, and

choruses. Touring drama companies such as the Within the Law Companyperformed modern and classic plays. The world famous Corrick Entertainers

gave musical performances, interspersed with comedy and short films. Professor

Clement Wragge, in 1909, gave an astronomy lecture at the hall to an enthralled

audience. The Very Rev D J OSullivan SMA was there the next year, showing

several hundred limelight views, of his travels in Egypt and Palestine.

The people of Runanga also put on their own entertainment at the hall. In 1919

a picture show and Art Union lottery was held, with the 100 raised going to

the fund to support dependents of imprisoned conscientious objectors. Annual

balls were held, including those for the Runanga footballers, and the Grand

Leap Year Ball of 1920 . Miss Watsons orchestra performed at both events.Grand concerts and dances, involving performances from local talent, were

regularly held to raise funds for local institutions such as the Runanga Convent

INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MINERS HALL, RUNANGA (C.1908-1912). PRICE, WILLIAM ARCHER, 1866-1948: COLLECTION

OF POST CARD NEGATIVES. REF 1/2-000194-G. ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.


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School, the Catholic Bazaar Fund and the Runanga School Committee, as well

as for wider causes such as fundraising for the striking Broken Hill miners.

More modest events such as euchre nights were also regular fund raising

events. Then there was the annual Chrysanthemum Show by the State Colliery

Horticultural Society. This event, always held at the Miners Hall, was famous

throughout the Coast, with trains always put on from Greymouth for the event.

This brief summary of political and social activities at the Runanga Miners

Hall in its early years gives us a snapshot of the life of a politi cally engaged

mining community in the early 20th century. It also gives the lie to the idea

that life was isolated and dull in the West Coast mining communities of that

time. Clearly a vibrant and well attended social life was available to the working

people of that time, much of it organised by the people themselves.

Dr Peter Clayworth is a Wellington historian. He is writing a biography of former

West Coast miners leader Pat Hickey.

Grey River Argus 1907-1920 on Papers Past National Library of NZ

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast

L Richardson, Coal, Class and Community: The United Mineworkers of NZ 1880-1960, AUP,

Auckland, 1995.

Letter: James Begg Kent to John Weir, 21 Aug 1966, courtesy of J Weir.

Tilly Hunter was a socialist and feminist who was active in trade unions,

community organisations, the Labour Party and the Communist Party. I am

proud to have been her son-in-law and her comrade in various causes.

Our first encounter was at the annual meeting of the Clerical Workers Union

in August 1975. Eighty percent of the unions members were women but the

organisers were men. There was a vacancy for an organiser and I moved that

the union appoint a woman. I had my arguments prepared but I hadnt thought

about arranging a seconder. To my relief, Tilly was straight out of her seat to

second the motion and argue strongly for it.

The top table, sensing a plot, looked aghast. An amendmentthat a suitably

qualified organiser be appointedwas proposed and carried 30 votes to eight.

Tilly bounced up to me after the meeting was finished. That was good fun,

she said with a grin. We lost the motion but won the batt le. The next day

Therese OConnell was appointed; the first of a notable group of women who

were organisers for the Clerical Workers.

Tilly and I became friends and then family when I fell in love with Sue Piper,her daughter. I knew a bit about Tillys life but found out a lot more when I

started writing the history of the Printers Union in the late 1990s. She had the

Peter Franks

My comrade, Tilly Hunter


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distinction of being the first woman to be elected to the Printers national

council and to be secretary of the unions Wellington branch. She was certainly

different from the other printers leaders. She was a young woman, she came

from a middle class family and she was a communist.

Tilly was born Margaret Neilson Dewar in India in 1929. John Dewar, herfather, was a railway engineer from Scotland. Margaret Mary Crosse, her mother,

was a daughter of a Hawkes Bay farming family with strong Scots ancestry.

She had gone to India to visit her brother who was in the Indian Army. John

Dewar contracted tuberculosis and the family returned to New Zealand. He

was only 45 years old when he died in 1940.

Tillys mother settled in Paraparaumu. When Tilly finished primary school she

was 13 years old, the then school leaving age. True to their Scots heritage, her

family believed strongly in education for daughters as well as sons. Thomas

Ezekiel Crosse, Tillys grandfather, was one of those who established Woodford

House in Havelock North as a private girls school. Because money was tight,Tilly went to Napier Girls High School as a boarder rather than to Woodford.

Tilly once told me that her life was characterised by change. She was born in

TILLY HUNTER AT HER 8OTH BIRTHDAY PARTY IN 2009.


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the year of the Wall Street Crash which led to the Great Depression. She was

five when the Quetta earthquake killed 40,000 people and turned her fathers

railroad into a twisted mess. The first Labour government raised the school

leaving age and reformed the examination system. These changes were

implemented while Tilly was at Napier Girls where she acquired the nickname

Tilly, after a chubby and cheerful cartoon character.

Tillys schooling took place during the Second World War. The war had a

profound effect on her. She was deeply disturbed by the waste of human li fe,

both combatant and civilian. She was also appalled at the destruction of countries

and resources.

She started at Wellington Teachers College and at Victoria University in 1947.

Her feelings about the war were fertile ground for the socialist views of many

of the ex-servicemen who were returning to tertiary education. She got involved

with Salient, the student newspaper, and the Socialist Club. One day she was

standing at the bottom of the stairs in the Hunter Building and her friend RonSmith asked her to join the Communist Party. She didnt hesitate.

Tilly took politics seriously but she also had a lot of fun. She made many friends

and learnt lots both inside and outside lectures. The Socialist Club held weekend

seminars where trade unionists led sessions on what socialism really meant

from the point of view of a wharfie or a carpenter or whatever. She said, it was

very good learning stuff and I enjoyed it all enormously.

Tilly went teaching, she fell in love and married Pip Piper. She was 20 years

old. Sue was born in 1951 and Mike in 1953. The marriage ended and Tilly had

to earn a living for herself and two small children.

Tilly decided she wanted to work with her hands. She got a job in the print

shop run by the Disabled Servicemens League. There was a rigid segregation

of jobs in the printing industry. Only men could do apprenticeships which led

to the best paid work. Women worked mainly in low-paid, unskilled jobs.

However the Printers Award, unlike others, did not have different pay rates

for men and women.

The print shop needed a guillotine operator. Tilly volunteered. There was a big

row about whether she could do the job. She won the argument and a much

better wage than she was getting as a printers assistant.

The Printers Union was run by tradesmen and was a conservative organisation,

but it had a very democratic structure. The union was organised at the workplace

and each workplace was entitled to be represented on the board of management

which ran the local branch.

Tilly became her shops delegate to the board of management and a Printers

delegate to the Wellington Trades Council. At the age of 29 she became the first

woman to be elected to the National Council of the Printers Union.

Shortly after this, the unions Wellington branch secretary resigned when it

was discovered that he had misused union money. Tilly was appointed actingsecretary and was one of the very few women union officials at the time. She

threw herself into the job with great support from other unionists, particularly


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Chip Bailey and Jock Hunter.

Tilly was a great storyteller. One of her favourite stories comes from her time

as secretary of the Wellington branch of the Printers Union.

John Dickinson, an overseas-owned stationery manufacturer in Haining Street,

Wellington, was a regular source of complaints to the union office. Tilly asked

to have a meeting with the workers at lunchtime in the cafeteria. This is what

happened next:

Permission was granted by management for me to do so, but I had a

think about this and I thought, those swine are going to be there and

it will be just as intimidating as me standing by a machine and trying

to find out whats bugging them. So I trundled off to whoever was

running the Trades Hall at the time and booked a room, just in case.

Then I went back and sure enough, just as I was standing on a chairabout to harangue the multitude, in filed most of management and all

the foremen. So I said, I see that we have visitors who are not members

of our union. Because I had thought this one through, and it was only

a matter of 50 yards across the road, I said, I have booked a room in

the Trades Hall, and all of you who wish to listen to me and tell me and

the union generally what is bugging you, I suggest you gather up your

sandwiches and come with me. With which I climbed down off the

chair thinking, I wonder if it will work! There was this clatter of feet

behind me down the stairs.

I was 150 feet tall that day. There were only two people in the union

who stayed behind. When we got over to the Trades Hall the members

presented me with a list of demands (all of which I think, except two,

were implemented) and also voted to stay out for the afternoon.

The point of this story, and of a lot of other campaigns in which Tilly was

involved, is about leadership. She said: If somebody stands up and says, Look,

Ill take most of the punches, I will support you in anything you decide to do

and I will provide you with the space in which you can do it, then together we

are invincible. People need leadersperhaps leaders is a bad word, a facilitator

is a good word. Facilitating is what I was doing, actually.

Tilly decided not to stand as the Printers secretary when the next electionswere held. The job was not compatible with looking after her children and she

had no regrets. It was difficult being a sole parent. This was years before the

introduction of the Domestic Purposes Benefit. She fell in love again and

married Bill Marsh. Jim was born in 1960 and John in 1962. She left the print

shop and went back to teaching as a reliever. Then her second marriage broke

up. In the 1970s she married again to Jock Hunter. That relationship didnt last

either. As she once said to me, in a considerable understatement, marriage

and I did not meld very well.

Tilly left teaching and became a postie. She was a keen walker and insisted on

doing postie runs on the hills of the eastern suburbs.

She loved the freedom of being a postie and the opportunity to meet lots of


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NEWSLETTER 55 | AUGUST

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Labour History Project Newsletter 55